Vanessa, Author at ad fontes media

USA Today Op-ed Illustrates Need for Interactive, Dynamic Media Bias Chart

USA Today, which has an overall source rating on the Media Bias Chart of “Neutral, Fact-Reporting,” published an Op-Ed written by President Trump yesterday that was widely panned by other news sources and on social media. The op-ed itself was analyzed and fact-checked by an article in the Washington Post the same day, which explained how many of the statements in the op-ed were misleading or inaccurate. USA Today got so much media peer pressure that today it actually published its own analysis, in partnership with FactCheck.org, which came to similar conclusions to the Washington Post article. According to Ad ...Read more

By Vanessa|2018-10-12T04:08:28+00:00October 12th, 2018|Uncategorized|1 Comment

A Deep Dive into Media Bias Chart 4.0 by Professor Max Stearns

I'm always impressed with the comments I get from so many of you about the most difficult questions the Media Bias Chart brings to mind. These include questions like"what constitutes the left-to right spectrum?" and "how can we really evaluate sources, in a consistent, data-driven, meaningful way?" Maxwell Stearns, Professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, has written extensively on the subject of dimensionality and related topics that make his analysis of these questions especially valuable. For some weekend reading that is especially enjoyable to News Nerds like me, check out his post! https://www.blindspotblog.us/single-post/2018/09/13/The-Newest-Viral-Media-Graphic?message_id=c42de05d-1830-4420-9e21-9125e849f382

By Vanessa|2018-10-06T19:12:08+00:00October 6th, 2018|Uncategorized|1 Comment

Using the Media Bias Chart to Illustrate the Difference Across the Spectrum: Ford-Kavanaugh Hearings

It’s a bad thing that many Americans live in alternate realities from each other based on the news sources they read and watch. The headlines below are all about essentially the same subject matter—the same events of the past few days--yet they vary wildly in their focuses and conclusions. I believe this is why we seem to be in a period of intractable polarization. Some of these contain more facts than others. Some have better analysis and better arguments than others. On the other hand, some contain more opinion and conjecture than others. Some have more hyperbole and extreme characterizations ...Read more

By Vanessa|2018-10-02T02:02:31+00:00October 2nd, 2018|Uncategorized|3 Comments

Wonkette’s Ranking: How and Why Media Bias Chart Ranked ’em!

One new ranking on Media Bias Chart 4.0, added upon request by many commenters, is Wonkette. It’s in the bottom left corner of the chart. Apparently those at Wonkette were so displeased by this ranking that they wrote this article--Wonkette is Fake News Like Louise Mensch, According to World’s Best Fucking Chart-- about it, which employed most of the factors that resulted in its low ranking in the first place. It was the first story on their page for most of today, which is, um…flattering, I suppose? I proceeded to get lots of opinions from Wonkette’s readers about how my ...Read more

By Vanessa|2018-09-16T21:29:23+00:00September 14th, 2018|Uncategorized|12 Comments

Media Bias Chart Ranks Patribotics All The Way Left

Even though its author is a self-described conservative and the National Enquirer skews right (and its owner squashed a damaging Trump story) One of the most fascinating types of comments I get are the ones insisting that one of the sources I have ranked in the bottom left of the Media Bias Chart, the Patribotics blog, should actually be ranked to the right. More fascinating still are the comments defending the credibility of the site. This post explores why I have this source ranked where it is, and also discusses similar reasons why National Enquirer is ranked where it is. ...Read more

By Vanessa|2018-09-16T21:36:46+00:00July 28th, 2018|All, Media Bias|9 Comments

Junk Food and Junk News: The Case for “Information Fitness”

We, as humans, have basic needs for several things. One of them is food. Another is information. We are always, by necessity and want, taking in both. It’s fair to say we even love both food and information. But we also, as humans, have a propensity for indulging in too much of a good thing to the point that we turn it into a bad thing. It’s easy for us to develop bad habits around any of our basic needs. This is especially true when indulging provides some kind of instant gratification but long-term damage. I submit that generally, our ...Read more

By Vanessa|2018-08-28T23:14:59+00:00June 27th, 2018|All, Media Bias|30 Comments

Part 2 of 4: Why Measuring Political Bias is So Hard, and How We Can Do It Anyway: The Media Bias Chart Horizontal Axis

Post Two of a Four-Part Series The Media Bias Chart Horizontal Axis: How to Define Political Bias in a Meaningful, Useful Way In part one of this series I laid out some problems with existing ways of measuring bias and outlined a proposed new methodology for rating such bias in news sources within a defined taxonomy (the horizontal axis of the Media Bias Chart). In this post, I’ll first define what the terms “partisanship” and “political bias” in this taxonomy (“partisanship” and “political bias” are used somewhat interchangeably here, though they are distinguishable in some aspects). More specifically, ...Read more

By Vanessa|2018-08-28T23:15:53+00:00June 7th, 2018|All, Media Bias, Methodology|24 Comments

Part 1 of 4: Why Measuring Political Bias is So Hard, and How We Can Do It Anyway: The Media Bias Chart Horizontal Axis

Post One of a Four-Part Series The Media Bias Chart Horizontal Axis: Part 1: Measuring Political Bias--Challenges to Existing Approaches and an Overview of a New Approach Many commentators on the Media Bias Chart have asked me (or argued with me about) why I placed a particular source in a particular spot on the horizontal axis. Some more astute observers have asked (and argued with me about) the underlying questions of “what do the categories mean?” and “what makes a source more or less politically biased?” In this series of posts I will answer these questions. In previous posts ...Read more

By Vanessa|2018-08-28T23:16:07+00:00May 25th, 2018|All, Media Bias, Methodology|11 Comments

An Exercise for Bias Detection

A great exercise to train your bias-detecting skills is to check on a high volume of outlets –say, eight to ten--across the political spectrum in the 6-12 hours right after a big political story breaks. I did this right after the release of the Nunes memo on Friday, Feb 2. This particular story provided an especially good occasion for comparison across sites for several reasons, including: -It was a big political story, so nearly everyone covered it. It’s easier to compare bias when each source is covering the same story. -The underlying story is fact-dense, meaning that a lot of ...Read more

By Vanessa|2018-08-28T23:16:19+00:00February 5th, 2018|All, Media Bias|17 Comments

Media Bias Chart, 3.1 Minor Updates Based on Constructive Feedback

So why is it time for another update to the Media Bias Chart? I’m a strong believer in changing one’s mind based on new information. That’s how we learn anyway, and I wish people would do it more often. I think it would lead to nicer online discussions and less polarization in our politics. Perhaps people don’t “change their minds based on new information” as much as they should because it is often framed more negatively as “admitting you are wrong.” I don’t particularly mind admitting I'm wrong. In any event, I’m making some minor updates to the Media ...Read more

By Vanessa|2018-08-29T17:14:02+00:00February 5th, 2018|All, Chart Iterations, Media Bias, Methodology|248 Comments

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